Charlotte Maclay - Expecting at Christmas

“Butlers are hard to find nowadays. The pay’s not especially good, you know. And I really needed the job so I could get medical coverage for myself and Isabelia’s baby.”

His gaze slid toward her midsection, now hidden by the edge of the table. “You’re having somebody else’s kid?”

“My aunt tried for years to get pregnant. When she turned forty, she got desperate. They decided to try a surrogate, and I volunteered.”

Ah, Isabella and Wayne. The herbal tea was definitely clearing his muddled brain. “You didn’t, ah, get that way—” he eyed her hidden belly again “—in the usual way?”

“Oh, my, no. That’s an awful thing to even think about Uncle Wayne.”

“There wasn’t anyone else who could do the job? I mean, as a surrogate.”

“My other aunts are mostly too old, and my cousins already have children, and their husbands weren’t keen on the idea. Besides, most of them didn’t have really easy pregnancies.”

He clenched a little. Maybe difficult pregnancies ran in her family—high-risk pregnancies. “Couldn’t Wayne hire somebody? It couldn’t cost much more than—”

“We’re family, Mr. Jones. When family’s involved, you do what needs to be done.”

“I wouldn’t give my uncle the time of day, much less get pregnant for him,” Griffin grumbled. Besides, Uncle Matt was the competition, the head of the electronic outlet stores that were giving his company fits.

A lyrical giggle erupted from Loretta. “I don’t think your uncle is likely to ask you to get pregnant.”

“Probably not,” he agreed, smiling wryly. He also couldn’t imagine his aunt, who looked as dry as a mesquite bush, asking him to impregnate her. He shuddered at the thought. “So why do you need medical insurance? I’d think your aunt and uncle would pay your expenses.”

“They died in a car accident.”

“I’m sorry. But didn’t they leave you something—”

“They weren’t rich, Mr. Jones. Not like you. And they never even thought about a will, I’m sure. Even if they had, there wasn’t enough left after the double funeral for my medical bills...or the baby’s.”

God, how he hated sob stories, particularly when they sounded legitimate. “Haven’t you been seeing a doctor?”

“Oh, sure. They prepaid my prenatal care, and the doctor’s been really good about not charging me for anything extra. But the delivery’s a whole different ball game, plus the hospital and pediatric care. So I’m going to need medical insurance.” Her eyes started to sparkle again, like diamonds in a pool of hot chocolate.

“Even if I let you work for me until you qualify—and I’m not saying I will,” he hastily added when he saw hope spring into her eyes, “wouldn’t the insurance company say you’ve got a pre-existing condition? They won’t cover—”

“It works a little differently with temp agencies. If I last long enough, I’m covered since the day I started work for them. It’s a carrot they hold out to keep employees around longer.”

“You’ve worked for these people before, then?”

Nodding, she sipped her tea. “Lots of times. I work when I’m not going to college.”

“College?”

She lifted her chin again at that determined angle. At some point the dark hair she’d pulled back into a bun had come loose, and feathery strands kissed the slender column of her neck. “I’m going to be the first person in my whole family who’s ever graduated from a university. I’ve completed 136 units at Cal State L.A.”

“That’s a lot of units.” More than Griffin had, and he had a degree.

“I would have graduated already but I keep changing my major. And they keep changing the requirements.”

“That can set you back, all right.”

“So I’ve still got a year or so to go. And now with the baby—” she shrugged “—it may take me a little longer.”

Maybe she should have thought about that before she agreed to have some other woman’s baby. Gritfin didn’t want anything to do with Loretta and her sob story. He certainly didn’t want her as his butler. But he couldn’t exactly throw her out on her ear in the middle of the night.

“Look, Miss Santana—”

“You can call me Loretta, if you like. They said in my accelerated butler’s class that was okay, if my employer found it easier.”

“Yeah, well...” Damn, he really hated firing people even when they were incompetent. So far, at least, Loretta hadn’t done anything wrong. “The truth is, I don’t actually need a butler.”

“Of course you do. Rodgers assured me—in confidence, you understand—that there are days when you wouldn’t be able to manage without him. You’re not terribly well organized, I gather.”

Griffin scowled. “Rodgers said that?”

“Oh, yes. But you mustn’t worry that I’ll let you down. I’m the most organized person I know.” She appeared quite confident.

He wasn’t convinced. “I still don’t think—”

The doorbell rang.

“I’ll get it.” Loretta hopped up, bumping the table in the process with her oversize belly and tipping over her cup of tea. “Oh, dear, I’ll wipe that up in a minute. You leave it for me.”

“Why don’t I answer the door while you take care of—”

“No, no. Answering the door is my job. They taught me just what to do.”

Taught her to answer a door? If that’s what she learned in the accelerated class, Griffin could barely imagine what a slow course might include.

He heard the door open and Loretta greet his visitor.

“I’m truly sorry you didn’t call first, miss,” Loretta said. “Mr. Jones has a dreadful cold, and I don’t think it would be wise for him to have guests this evening.”

A feminine voice he couldn’t quite make out responded.

“Now, wait a minute,” he muttered, heading for the front of the house. His cold, such as it was, wasn’t that bad.

“I’m sure you understand Mr. Jones is only thinking of your well-being. He wouldn’t want to expose you to a virus that might take weeks for your immune system to throw off.”

Griffin spotted a willowy redhead at the door, a soap opera starlet who was making a big splash on the social scene. He’d been trying for weeks to date her.

“Aileen, hi, there. It’s good to see you. Come on in.” He tried to ease Loretta aside. She didn’t budge from her post at the door.

Aileen eyed him with regal disdain before sending Loretta a cutting look intended to cause a mere mortal to bleed profusely. “I don’t recall ever getting such an interesting brush-off before, Griffin.”

“No, you don’t understand. She’s my butler.”

“Really? How terribly convenient for you.” Turning, she floated back down the steps, gracefully exiting the scene.

Griffin swore under his breath and followed her to her flashy Porsche. He tried to talk to Aileen, to make her understand, but the best he got was “By all means, call me when your butler returns from England. If he ever does.”

The car roared off down the driveway, rattling across the planks of the twenty-foot-long bridge over the creek at the bottom of the hill.

Griffin fumed and marched back up the steps.

He glared at Loretta. “Do you know what you just did? I’ve been trying to date that woman for weeks.”

“Well, you certainly wouldn’t want to make a bad impression on her, then, by giving her your cold. That’d be terrible. She’d be overwhelmed by all those nasty little oxidants, her yin and yang would have a terrible battle, and then where would you be?”

He didn’t have a good answer for that as she breezily went back to the kitchen to clean up the spilled tea and make him some chicken soup.

Having Loretta Santana as his butler was definitely going to be hard on his love life.